Assuming the Founding Fathers decided to fashion the United States under a government similiar too and based on the Swiss Confederation, with the states being the same as cantons, how would this change the course of American history and expansion?
See the unfavorable view In Federalist no. 19 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/federal/ch19.html
The connection among the Swiss cantons scarcely amounts to a confederacy; though it is sometimes cited as an instance of the stability of such institutions.
They have no common treasury; no common troops even in war; no common coin; no common judicatory; nor any other common mark of sovereignty.
They are kept together by the peculiarity of their topographical position; by their individual weakness and insignificancy; by the fear of powerful neighbors, to one of which they were formerly subject; by the few sources of contention among a people of such simple and homogeneous manners; by their joint interest in their dependent possessions; by the mutual aid they stand in need of, for suppressing insurrections and rebellions, an aid expressly stipulated and often required and afforded; and by the necessity of some regular and permanent provision for accomodating disputes among the cantons. The provision is, that the parties at variance shall each choose four judges out of the neutral cantons, who, in case of disagreement, choose an umpire. This tribunal, under an oath of impartiality, pronounces definitive sentence, which all the cantons are bound to enforce. The competency of this regulation may be estimated by a clause in their treaty of 1683, with Victor Amadeus of Savoy; in which he obliges himself to interpose as mediator in disputes between the cantons, and to employ force, if necessary, against the contumacious party.
So far as the peculiarity of their case will admit of comparison with that of the United States, it serves to confirm the principle intended to be established. Whatever efficacy the union may have had in ordinary cases, it appears that the moment a cause of difference sprang up, capable of trying its strength, it failed. The controversies on the subject of religion, which in three instances have kindled violent and bloody contests, may be said, in fact, to have severed the league. The Protestant and Catholic cantons have since had their separate diets, where all the most important concerns are adjusted, and which have left the general diet little other business than to take care of the common bailages.
That separation had another consequence, which merits attention. It produced opposite alliances with foreign powers: of Berne, at the head of the Protestant association, with the United Provinces; and of Luzerne, at the head of the Catholic association, with France.
See the unfavorable view In Federalist no. 19 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/federal/ch19.html
The connection among the Swiss cantons scarcely amounts to a confederacy; though it is sometimes cited as an instance of the stability of such institutions.
They have no common treasury; no common troops even in war; no common coin; no common judicatory; nor any other common mark of sovereignty.
They are kept together by the peculiarity of their topographical position; by their individual weakness and insignificancy; by the fear of powerful neighbors, to one of which they were formerly subject; by the few sources of contention among a people of such simple and homogeneous manners; by their joint interest in their dependent possessions; by the mutual aid they stand in need of, for suppressing insurrections and rebellions, an aid expressly stipulated and often required and afforded; and by the necessity of some regular and permanent provision for accomodating disputes among the cantons. The provision is, that the parties at variance shall each choose four judges out of the neutral cantons, who, in case of disagreement, choose an umpire. This tribunal, under an oath of impartiality, pronounces definitive sentence, which all the cantons are bound to enforce. The competency of this regulation may be estimated by a clause in their treaty of 1683, with Victor Amadeus of Savoy; in which he obliges himself to interpose as mediator in disputes between the cantons, and to employ force, if necessary, against the contumacious party.
So far as the peculiarity of their case will admit of comparison with that of the United States, it serves to confirm the principle intended to be established. Whatever efficacy the union may have had in ordinary cases, it appears that the moment a cause of difference sprang up, capable of trying its strength, it failed. The controversies on the subject of religion, which in three instances have kindled violent and bloody contests, may be said, in fact, to have severed the league. The Protestant and Catholic cantons have since had their separate diets, where all the most important concerns are adjusted, and which have left the general diet little other business than to take care of the common bailages.
That separation had another consequence, which merits attention. It produced opposite alliances with foreign powers: of Berne, at the head of the Protestant association, with the United Provinces; and of Luzerne, at the head of the Catholic association, with France.
The War of the Sonderbund in 1848, leading to the Federal Diet writing a new liberal constitution. James Billinton, in his history of revolutionary movements in Europe, cites this as the one solitary example in Europe of a successful liberal revolution that did not fall either to traditionalists or to socialists.Wait. Whats the differences between the Swiss of that time and of modern day?
Wait. Whats the differences between the Swiss of that time and of modern day?
And yet Swizterland is still here.
The Federalist Papers might have been written before the Sonderbundkreig (and they shouldn't be taken as the word of God here -- they were politically oriented propaganda/leaflets written to argue a particular viewpoint, not objective, scientific analyses), but the Swiss political structure was deeply embedded enough that the Swiss wanted it back right after the ten ton gorilla of Europe seemingly uprooted it wholesale and replaced it with the unitary wet dream of the High Federalists.
In some ways, also, the Articles of Confederation were more centralized than the Swiss Confederacy that existed before the 19th century and the current Swiss Confederacy is still less centralized than the modern United States.
If you want to take the analogy further you should examine the history of Switzerland subsequently to the writing of the Federalist Papers, rather than treating prophecy superior to actual history.
Well, the point was that the weaknesses of the Swiss Confederacy were recognized even in the eighteenth century. You are right that it was more decentralized than even the Articles of Confederation. But the subsequent history of Switzerland shows precisely that such a situation could not last--there *was* after all a Sonderbund War and a subsequent strengthening of the federal government.
And in any event in the 1780's there was a general feeling in the US that the Articles of Confederation needed to be strengthened--even most "anti-Federalists" agreed with that, though they thought the Philadelphia convention had gone too far. So it is most unlikely they would go in for a *weaker* federation than the Articles...
Edit for doublepost:
ManInTheField, you're right that Switzerland is still here. But your analysis is incomplete. It wasn't just the virtues of the Old Swiss Confederacy that caused the Swiss to want it back; it was that the Helvetian Republic was imposed from outside and held in place by an army of occupation. And after that, the decentralization led to civil war - one of the nightmares of Federalists and Anti-Federalists alike - and then, finally, a far more federalist constitution (even though less centralized than modern America). The Federalists never said the Old Swiss Confederacy or the United States Confederation would inevitably fall apart; they just said neither was sufficient. And both were, in fact, replaced.